


u want to love me (but honey that ain’t ok)

by freefallvertigo



Category: UnREAL (TV)
Genre: Canon, F/F, First Kiss, Sexy times implied, u may call this a heart to heart if either of them admitted to having hearts, vegas babey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 02:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13965174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freefallvertigo/pseuds/freefallvertigo
Summary: Quinn always knows exactly what she wants, with one exception. Rachel.





	u want to love me (but honey that ain’t ok)

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Quinn and Rachel’s trip to Nevada during S2E1

“I can do it. Just...” 

Rachel’s protests went unacknowledged by Quinn. She had been trying and failing to remove her shoes since she sat down on the bed several minutes ago and Quinn’s patience, scarce to begin with, had worn thin. So she crouched down and began to untie her laces. 

“Are you crazy, taking all that coke?” Quinn, unsurprisingly, had sobered up much quicker than Rachel. “It’s like you enjoy making an ass out of yourself.”

The party had just ended. Darius was officially the new suitor, the first _black_ suitor, and Rachel had gone a little overboard in her celebrations. But so what? In her eyes, she was making history. Didn’t she deserve to give herself a pat on the back; to let loose a little? She sure thought so. Besides, they were in Vegas. It would have been weirder not to lose control. 

”What are you smirking at?” Quinn asked after yanking Rachel’s boots off. She tossed them aside, stood up, stumbled a little, and then sat down next to Rachel in the bed. Clearly she was still a little tipsy. 

Rachel shrugged, smiling like she had a secret. “We did it. We got him. We’re finally gonna start making a difference.”

”We’ll only make a difference if people keep watching the show,” Quinn’s champagne-drunk slur was less prominent than before but she was still relaxed. No tension in her body language, no cutting sharpness in her gaze. “I’ll need you to bring all your crazy genius with you this year, Rachel. And then some.”

Quinn put her hand on Rachel’s knee innocently and Rachel’s heart started to race. She could have blamed it on the drugs or even on the excitement of the night but she knew that would have been a lie. This was another kind of high entirely. 

“Do you... do you even like me?” Rachel asked, seemingly out of nowhere. But it wasn’t. The question had been playing on her mind for a while and only now that they were alone and slightly wasted did she brave eliciting the truth out of Quinn.

“Uh. Sure?” The question had caught Quinn off guard. She frowned. “I like you.”

Rachel raised her eyebrows, evidently not satisfied by Quinn’s uncertain answer. Quinn scoffed but decided to indulge Rachel’s insecurity. 

“Ugh. I mean, you’re like one of those stray dogs that follows you home,” She began, her own warped version of validating. “Barely cute, never washes and impossible to get rid of. But also unpredictable. I like unpredictable.”

”For the ratings,” Rachel understood, failing to mask her disappointment. 

”Mostly,” Quinn sighed and lay back on the bed. “Look, I don’t know Rachel, there’s something about you. You get me, you get what I need in order to make the show work, you know what I’m gonna ask for before I even think to ask. I can’t count on someone like Madison for that. Hell, I can’t even count on Jay for that. He’s got way too many morals.”

Rachel lay down, too. “And then there’s the fact that I’m insane. We both know you love that.”

”You’re not insane,” Quinn rolled her eyes, not that Rachel saw it. “You’re slightly unhinged. Who isn’t? Most of us are just better at hiding it. Hold on, is this about Adam? Are you still pissed?”

“No.”

Rachel was definitely still pissed but she was trying her best not to be. She got matching tattoos with Quinn, she put Adam out of her mind, she came back to the show. And right now, with cocaine and victory coursing through her veins, none of it mattered anyway. She rolled over onto her side and looked at Quinn, barely illuminated by the lit neon sign hanging from a building opposite the hotel window. It cast a dim pink glow about her face. Somehow, Quinn’s features seemed softer this way. Alien, even. Rachel found that she was enjoying it.

After all, when were they ever so undone around one another? Sure, Rachel came undone at least once every season but Quinn hardly ever let her guard down. She was always too busy greasing the gears of the well-oiled machine that was Everlasting. Rachel, of course, was one of said gears. Half of Quinn’s job was managing her and making sure all of her screws and bolts were firmly in place. She always told herself that the reason she paid such close attention to Rachel was because she couldn’t afford to lose such an efficient producer. That was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. 

Right there and then, however, Quinn was off the clock and a different side of her was stepping out of the shadows for Rachel to view in all it’s drunken glory. She was unkempt, her hair a matted mess and her dress wrinkled and hiked a little too far up her legs. Her lipstick was smudged slightly and Rachel tried to recall if she had seen anybody kissing her. She couldn’t, but that didn’t stop a shard of jealousy from piercing into her chest. Silly, considering she’d just hooked up with the new suitor’s manager a matter of hours ago. But how many times had she wanted to ruffle Quinn’s perfect posture and leave her looking rough and tired and crimson from the rush of it all? Too many to count. 

“Are you done checking me out?” Quinn side eyed Rachel and laughed - though it lacked any real semblance of humour. “Seriously, what is up with you tonight, Goldberg?”

”You brought me to Vegas.”

”Yeah. That was a mistake, apparently.”

”Why?” 

“Look at you, your pupils are the size of-“

”No,” Rachel cut Quinn off. “Why did you bring me to Vegas? I get that this was my idea but you didn’t need me here to sell the idea to the execs. If anything, I’m a liability.”

It was Quinn’s turn to roll onto her side. “Is that really what you believe?”

”Yes.”

”Then there’s your answer, idiot,” Quinn said, like it should have been obvious. “One day, it’ll be you pitching your big ideas to guys like Brad in places like this. You could be me. You could be more. But if you keep viewing yourself as this small, weak thing then how will you ever get the confidence to outgrow yourself? I brought you here to... inspire you. I guess.”

Quin shrugged like it didn’t matter, solely because she was painfully aware that her every move was being anatomised. Rachel had a habit of taking things too personally and reading far too deep into every conversation, so she was always consciously molding her behaviour to convey just the right amount of indifference. 

”Be careful, Quinn,” Rachel’s voice was smug. She rested a hand on Quinn’s shoulder, oblivious to the effort she had put into sounding casual. “It’s starting to sound like you give a shit.”

”Well,” Quinn started, before realising that she couldn’t really think of anything to say. Especially not with Rachel’s eyes fixed on her lips like that. And then there was that feeling in her stomach.  _Oh, shit_. For a long time now, Quinn had been actively trying to avoid this; trying to pretend it wasn’t real. She played ignorant to Rachel’s pining, even going as far as to insult her often enough to remind her of the exact nature of their relationship. The reason for that was because she didn’t know exactly what this brewing tension between them was or where it might lead. She only knew that it was dangerous. Rachel sometimes looked at her with what she could only describe as hunger and Quinn had always refused to allow herself to reciprocate.

As though she had any choice in the matter. 

Quinn cleared her throat. “We should get some sleep.”

”Is that what you want?”

”Yes,” Quinn’s reply was brief and harsh, yet still she didn’t move. 

“Really?” Rachel asked, dubious. “Then go ahead. There’s nothing stopping you.”

Rachel’s actions clashed with her words. She moved her hand from Quinn’s shoulder to her cheek, where she proceeded to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and gently brush over her eyebrow with her thumb. When sober, she’d never dare be so brazen around Quinn. Her fantasies remained as much and she had never dreamed she’d act on them. But Quinn was lying right there on the covers next to her and she was gorgeous. Her typically iron will was crumbling, and only continued to do so once her fingertips made contact with Quinn’s skin. Rachel searched Quinn for signs of resistance but Quinn did nothing in the way of stopping her. Her face, however, remained unreadable.

“Don’t say you’ve never thought about it.”

”About what, you weirdo?” Quinn feigned cluelessness, despite the fact that they both clearly knew what she was talking about.

Still, Rachel clarified. “Us. Me and you. The two baddest bitches in the game. I mean, can you imagine? We’d be-“

”A fucking mess?”

”Unstoppable,” Rachel finished, a fire raging behind her eyes. “We could do anything.”

Rachel so desperately wanted Quinn to surrender her facade, if only for a moment. She had to know that what they shared was real. It was killing her to think that this might all just have been a delusion Rachel conjured in her head. Was she projecting? Was that pity in Quinn’s eyes instead of what she really hoped it was? 

”We already do,” Quinn reminded her. “At least _you_ always do whatever the fuck you want. You’ve never needed me for that, Rachel.”

”Maybe. But it’d be so much goddamn fun,” Rachel laughed and Quinn could smell the alcohol on her breath as it landed hotly on her lips and face. “What is it that you’re so afraid of?”

Truthfully, Quinn wasn’t so sure. But she knew the facts, which were this: both of them had been burned before, Rachel often made rash decisions without good cause, Quinn had never been with a woman, Rachel was still kind of high, Quinn was still kind of drunk, neither of them were in their right minds. And really, were they ever? The two of them together would be explosive, sure, but probably not in all the right ways. And if Quinn was the one to send Rachel over the edge again, or if - god forbid - anything happened to Rachel because of her, she didn’t know that she could live with that. 

“You’re thinking about this way too much,” Rachel said, and then she kissed her. 

At first, Quinn didn’t know how to react. Rachel’s lips were pressed up against her own and every instinct she’d been fighting since as long as she could remember, including the instinct to kiss back, suddenly surged to the surface of her mind in a tsunami-scale wave. Quinn didn’t actually kiss her back but she also didn’t pull away. Instead, she allowed it to happen. She allowed Rachel this one stolen moment of intimacy, and if she was being totally honest, her reasons weren’t entirely altruistic. Rachel broke away from the kiss, keeping her hand on Quinn’s face as if she might run away otherwise, and awaited some kind of reaction.

“I’m sorry,” She apologised after a moment of stunned silence. “I thought maybe you...”

”I did. I do,” Quinn confessed. She exhaled deeply. “I don’t know, Rachel, I thought there was this unspoken agreement between us that this could never become an actual thing.”

”But why not?” Rachel asked. “I want you. I really fucking want you, Quinn.”

”No, Rachel, you don’t. I’d screw it all up and you know it,” Quinn explained. “I’d end up breaking your heart sooner or later and I can’t be responsible for that. Not after everything you’ve been through, and certainly not when you take into consideration the fact that we work together. We know from experience how well that usually plays out. It’s easier for both of us if I’m there for you in a different way.”

”I don’t need another mother, Quinn,” Rachel propped herself up onto her elbow.

”I beg to differ,” Quinn mumbled. “But what the hell is wrong with carrying on as we are? This works, okay? I don’t need anything more from you than what I alread have. I’m perfectly happy being your boss.”

“I don’t accept that. You’re saying these things because you think you’re looking out for me. But you’re not,” Rachel argued with heartbreaking sincerity. “You’re afraid that I’m gonna explode and that it’ll be all your fault and you can’t deal with the guilt. Fuck that. I get a say in the risks I take and I want you to be one of them.”

”Rachel...” Quinn wanted to deny it but she was right. Part of her was terrified of Rachel. It wasn’t because she was damaged - lord knows Quinn was just as damaged in her own spectacular ways - but because she actually cared for the girl. Quinn, for the most part, was fearless. But one thing that scared the shit out of her was letting people in. Rachel had gotten a few layers deeper than anyone else in a long time but there were so many left and she had no idea what it would mean to expose herself like that to someone she genuinely cherished.

“Just kiss me. Please,” Rachel pleaded. “Kiss me.”

”I should really leave,” Quinn whispered feebly. “It’s late.”

”But Quinn...” Rachel was speaking softly now and they both knew what she was going to say next. “I think I-“

”Don’t,” Quinn warned. She wasn’t even in the general proximity of ready for that conversation. That was a whole other ballpark and it would change things forever. “Don’t you dare.”

”So shut me up,” Rachel was blinking back tears. “If you don’t want me to say it then shut me up.”

Quinn knew she shouldn’t. Rachel was in the process of coming down and _she_ was in the process of sobering up but maybe that was exactly why she did it anyway; why she cursed the woman in front of her before grabbing her face and pulling her in. Then Rachel was kissing back like she might die if she stopped. Then she got on top of her, holding Quinn’s wrists down on either side of her head and apparently forgetting to be emotional when a raw kind of passion took over them both. Then Quinn forgot to be afraid. 

And she didn’t remember until morning.

**Author's Note:**

> p.s. i wrote this at 2am so it’s kinda rushed and sloppy but i just had an urge to write it ok thanks for ur time


End file.
